


Fox

by Pres310



Series: Wild Witches, Wilder Magic [3]
Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Body Horror, Horror, Implied Body Horror, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Journals, Other, The Emperor's Coven (The Owl House), historical documents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27440683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pres310/pseuds/Pres310
Summary: After the night the Emperor burned the Night Market, Eda finds a particularly curious journal.
Relationships: Eda Clawthorne & Luz Noceda
Series: Wild Witches, Wilder Magic [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1988593
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	Fox

**Author's Note:**

> Oh god, where do I begin with this one.
> 
> This one is confusing! I'll admit to that. Also, my first attempt at some mild horror!
> 
> I also realize that this is rushed! It was a warmup and a sort of test for some ideas I'd been meaning to try in TOH fanfic. I promise I'll write something longer soon, haha!

It was after the night the Emperor burned the Night Market.

  
_This Journal Belongs to-_  
 _Indrid._

  
While picking through the charred remains of the Night Market, under the ashen cloak of a particularly unlucky Emperor’s Coven Guard, had lain a small, dark book that had once been painted with swaths of silver eyes. The name had no identifier, but something about it picked at the back of Eda’s mind, pulling her back to it. Indrid was probably the name of the dead guard, she reasoned.

  
_Date: March 16, 19XX_

  
Indrid was most definitely not the name of the dead Guard, she realized.

  
_Journal,_   
_My name is Indrid, and that is all you need to know. In consideration of the coming future, I fear that is all you need to know to know every detail of how this Journal proceeds. And if you respond to the word Fox, you know much more beyond these pages. I made so sure of that- so sure that you knew enough to-_

  
And that was the fateful line that led to Eda bringing it home, paranoid and glancing about frightfully.

  
And that was also the fateful line that led to the inhabitants of the Owl House staying up late to poke through its secrets.

  
At an ungodly late or early hour, Luz flipped through the Journal, her heart beating fast behind her to try to catch up with her racing thoughts, her hands shaking and almost ripping paper and her breath a frightened flurry of wings. The pages kept changing themselves around- a common witch journaling tactic that she should definitely teach Amity- and the group had been searching for a dreadfully important page for over an hour. The book was heavy and endless and the page kept slipping from her hands like a forgotten nightmare, and she wondered if she’d imagined it. They needed to find it. They wanted so badly to never see it.

  
Fox.

  
Fox- Luz knew it was in there somewhere.

  
Luz finally ripped open a pair of pages, splaying them out on the table before her. Her eyes barely took in any of the words- she let out a sigh in relief and her stomach rolled with oncoming unease and realization.

  
“Eda! I found the…” the words died on Luz’s tongue.

  
Fox.

  
The title was written in dark ink, not quite pure black, and thick. Simple. Plain. The Text was densely packed and completely unemotive- blocks of chicken-scratch medical terms. Whoever had written this- thief as they were- did not own this journal. Plain and simple.

  
But whoever had taken that awful photo had so obviously been the Journal’s owner.

  
The Author- who spoke so affectionately, who carried The unspeakable name with weight and fear and aching, who would scream it out to the winds like a promise, who would hurt and yearn so deeply for this- this being.

  
Fox.

  
The Thief- with messy handwriting and tiny letters and big words- wrote like a machine, words printed neatly in fatty, chunky, muddy oil. Luz suspected that the words would catch fire before the paper, if she held a flame close enough to it.

  
Fox.

  
The Witch in that photo, wild and green and snarling like a feral beast and with eyes wider than the moon and lit up with the crack and snap of lightning, The Witch whose name was forgotten to time… bent. Contorted. It was an image you could hear; your chest and throat could burn and bleed with how guttural of a howl The Forgotten Witch had let out.

  
Fox.

  
Luz couldn't stand to read anything else about that Wild Witch.

  
Placing down a bookmark between the pages, Luz swallowed as she closed the book. She settled back in her seat. She took a breath. Eda, at her side, took one with her, shaky and sour with bile and acid. She set her hands on top of Luz’s and gently pried them from the book, before leaning down to hug her apprentice.

  
Eda had never heard Luz sob like she did that night- she hoped she would never have to again.

**Author's Note:**

> An explanation:
> 
> Long ago, as the Emperor was coming into power, there were two witches- Indrid, and somebody very important to them. We'll call them Fox.
> 
> Indrid documented much of their life via a journal, now kept stowed away in the Night Market, and when said Market Burned- it was found in the ashes by Eda.
> 
> Seeing it was a journal from a wild witch, Eda and Luz investigate, only to find that after Indrid and Fox were captured, the journal was tampered with by the person in charge of petrifying Fox. And as we see in the show, petrifying was a slow process. Indrid, with no mouth capable of screaming enough, kept a photo of Fox's final moments. The horror of it, of what the Emperor was doing, would scream for them.


End file.
